We Can't Go Back ( Or Can We )
by shippershape
Summary: Sequel to The Days Are The Nightmares (read that first). Stiles and Lydia wake up in a room that is not their motel room. They both look different, older, and they realize what felt like one night passing to them was actually years. Can they figure out what happened to to them? And more importantly, can they find their way back? Please review, they keep me going.
1. Chapter 1

Stiles woke to the smell of lavender. His face was pressed into Lydia's neck, her hair tickling his lips. He didn't have to open his eyes to know that it was already light out, his own hair was damp with sweat. As he savored the feeling of Lydia wrapped tightly in his arms, he marveled at the fact that she could still smell so good. It had been two days since she'd showered, he was hoping he could convince her to use the motel's questionable shower before they left, but she still smelled amazing. Actually, he thought, they both smelled pretty clean. So did the bed, even though as they'd fallen asleep the night before the smell of old sweat had nearly overpowered him. Confused, Stiles opened his eyes, only to slam them shut as the full light of day burned into his retinas. _What the hell? _

The motel room only had one window, and it wasn't exactly big. There was no way that tiny window could let in this much light. Bracing himself for the pain, Stiles forced his eyes open once more, then shot straight up in bed. Discomfort forgotten, he stared around the room with wide eyes. Instead of the dreary beige of the hotel room, the walls were painted a cool blue. Pictures and books littered the walls and desk sitting in the corner. There was something disturbingly familiar about the style, but he was certain he'd never seen this room before. His eyes fell on the picture closest to the bed, and upon recognizing the people in it he gave a yelp of surprise and promptly tumbled out of bed.

As he sat on the floor, blinking dazedly, he heard the rustling of sheets and realized Lydia was waking up. He reigned his focus back in just in time to see her head pop over the side of the bed. Her eyes were wide, wild. Stiles was sure he looked the same.

"Stiles… wh-" He shushed her. She didn't even have the composure to look annoyed. His eyes swept over her face, taking in the subtle differences. Her cheekbones seemed higher almost, sharper. Her lips, always full, stood out more than he was used to on her thinned out face. Her hair, which had fallen in around her face, was long enough to tickle Stiles where he sat on the floor. She looked different. Older. Heart pounding, Stiles shoved himself roughly to his feet. He glanced down at his hands, noting the tiny changes. That scar he'd gotten the night Scott had tried to light himself on fire was faded, almost gone. It had still been pink and shiny the night before. Stiles scanned the room for a mirror. Spotting one above the desk (vanity?) he nearly launched himself at it. He poured over every inch of reflection, noting the different freckle patterns, the angular line of his chin and jaw, the way his hair was longer than he had ever kept it.

"This is impossible." He muttered, backing away from the mirror. He was a little startled at the vehemence in his own voice. "This isn't-" He turned back to the bed, and saw Lydia kneeling in the sheets, her hands fisted in the duvet. She looked terrified. Stiles tried to ignore the fact that she didn't look like his Lydia, she looked like someone else, and stepped tentatively toward her. _This isn't real_. He told himself. It couldn't be. Still, he found himself edging closer to Lydia. The fear in her eyes was beginning to cause him physical pain.

"Lydia?" He asked. His voice, now that his ears were no longer ringing with the sound of his own thunderous heartbeat, sounded deeper.

"Stiles." So did hers. No deep so much as… fuller. The rasp was still there, and she sounded like herself, but not. Stiles stood nervously beside the bed. Part of him wanted to hold her, to embrace what was clearly a dream and pull her into his arms and savor it until he woke up. The other part felt awkward, like he was looking at a stranger.

"This is a dream." He said. Because it was. She stared at him for a moment, those lips that he had always loved half pursed as though she was about to say something. Then she did.

"No." She murmured. It was his turn to stare. "Stiles, look at your hands." Suddenly remembering what he had taught her, he looked back down at his hands. Five fingers stared back at him. The room started to spin, but he took a deep breath, shutting his eyes and shutting out the view that was causing his heart to kick up again. When he opened them Lydia stood in front of him. Instinctively, he opened his arms, and Lydia stepped into them. As he held her like that, one hand on the back of her head, he knew. He had held her like this before, and it felt exactly as it did then, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was as real as that had been.

They'd woken up in the future. And Stiles had no idea how they were going to get back.


	2. A Crossbow

It suddenly occurred to Stiles that there were a few possibilities here. They could both have been aged somehow overnight, the opposite of whatever had happened to Derek. Maybe it was some weird side effect to handling those fangs.

On the other hand, potentially, they could be in the future. He had tried to suppress that thought the second it had entered his head because really, that was ridiculous. They had seen a lot of things in the past few years, but time travel? He was also beginning to realize that if by some bizarre miracle they actually had shot forward into the future, he might be the only one with a memory of it. What if this actually wasn't his Lydia? What if this girl in his arms was someone he hadn't even met yet? He pulled back.

She looked upset. Her eyes were huge and black, and Stiles remembered how she'd known exactly what he was thinking as tried to pass this off as a dream. Deciding to throw caution to the wind in favor of getting everything out in the open, Stiles just asked.

"Lydia." There was that voice again. His voice. His words as he thought them, in a few tones lower than he was used to. "What's the last thing you remember?" She seemed to be thinking, and as she did so, Stiles realized all she was wearing was a green nightie. It was short, very short, and it dipped at her chest in a way that made it impossible not to notice that those had certainly not been that big the last time he saw her. He averted his eyes. Either Lydia was a late bloomer, or she'd had some work done. Finally she spoke.

"The motel. We were going to sleep, waiting for it to be light out…" She looked up at him. Her eyes slid slowly across his face, then down his body. He would have made a joke about her checking him out if he hadn't been doing the same thing to her a few seconds ago. If her eyes had been big before, they now seemed to take over her face. Stiles wondered which of them had changed more. At least this confirmed that whatever had happened, he wasn't in it alone. Lydia let out a noise that could only be described as pure shock, and Stiles followed her gaze to the picture he had been looking at earlier. Right. He had forgotten about that.

Striding over to the picture, Stiles pulled it off the wall and stared at it. A miniature version of himself stared back. In the picture his arm was slung easily across Lydia's shoulders, a wide grin on his face as she pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her red hair was caught in the wind, thrown back against blue sky. They looked closer to high school age Stiles and Lydia than they were now, but he could see the thinning of Lydia's face, and the shadow across his jaw that said quite a bit of time had passed for them. He looked up at Lydia, the real Lydia, who was standing there in her nightie, hands balled into tiny fists. He made his way over to her, and pulled her back onto the bed. He grabbed the duvet and wrapped it around her, then handed her the picture. She stared at it the same way he had, disbelieving, then dropped it onto the bed beside her.

"I don't understand." She whispered. Stiles frowned.

"Yes, you do." He said it gently, but firmly. He needed her, now maybe more than ever. Both of them had to pull it together. She stared up at him, and suddenly the fear was gone, replaced by exhaustion. She sagged into herself, leaning against him. His arm slid around her shoulders, and it was almost achingly familiar. The second he'd seen that picture he'd known. It had taken having Lydia in his arms to admit it to himself, but the look in his eyes in that picture was the same look he always had when she touched him. A little bit of wonder.

"What the hell happened?" Lydia's voice was a bit muffled as she was speaking into his t-shirt, but Stiles heard her. He shrugged, knowing Lydia could feel it.

"I have no idea." She sat up with a sigh. Hopping to her feet, she cased the room. Her eyes swept over every picture, every inch of wall. As she leaned forward to study a portrait of them, her nightgown rode up and Stiles noticed something on the back of her thigh. He leaned over, brushing his fingers across it, and Lydia gave a startled yelp.

"Stiles, what are you doing?" As he glanced up at her, Stiles realized how it looked, his hand halfway up her dress. He jerked backwards.

"You have a tattoo." He offered, blushing. She narrowed her eyes.

"What is it?" She asked, still glaring at him suspiciously. Stiles smiled sadly at her.

"It's a crossbow." Lydia stared at him for a moment, the glare slipping off her face. Grief replaced it, drawing lines across her forehead, tugging at the corners of her lips. She shook it off.

"Oh."

"Lydia." Stiles said softly. She shook her head.

"I don't want to talk about it, Stiles." He frowned.

"No, not that. We have to talk about this." Stiles gestured around the room. It had come to him, the reason why the room seemed so familiar. It was a mash of styles, his and hers. The blue was something he would have chosen, and the way the books were organized, or rather their lack of any visible organization system, was reminiscent of his bedroom back at his dad's house. The pictures and the finer points of décor, white trim everywhere, lush throw pillows, that was Lydia. This room was theirs. Lydia stayed where she was, folding her arms across her chest.

"Okay. So. We're… in the future." They'd both been thinking it, but the moment the words left her mouth Stiles had to stifle a giggle. It was just so ridiculous. He suppressed it, though, because she was glaring again.

"Yeah. We're, um, in the future. How far, do you think?" Stiles asked. She didn't answer him. "Like, when are we, exactly?"

"Oh." Apparently this hadn't occurred to Lydia. She frowned, pacing between the photos, trying to find something that would give her a clue. Stiles looked around, and spotted a phone charging on the bedside table. He picked it up, searching for a power button. As far as he could tell, there wasn't one. It was just a thin piece of metal and glass. He turned around and thrust it at Lydia. She took it, looking confused.

"Try and turn that on." She flipped it over a few times, apparently as stumped as he was.

"What is it?" She asked.

"It's a phone." He said, as if it were obvious.

"How do you know?" She persisted, holding it up to her eye for a better look. Stiles sighed in frustration.

"What do you mean how do I know? What else would it be?" He was starting to get annoyed, not at Lydia so much as their situation. For some reason he had this feeling that if they could just figure out what day it was they would be able to figure out where to go from there. Lydia let out a little shriek as the phone chimed and vibrated in her hand. A cool female voice came from it, wishing them both a good morning. Lydia thrust it back at Stiles, looking unnerved. He took it, and the screen flashed with a logo, at least that was familiar, before lighting up with another picture of Lydia and Stiles. In this one neither was looking at the camera. They were locked together in which was clearly a passionate kiss, eyes closed, his hand tangled in her hair. He ignored the twinge of melancholy in his stomach. Whatever twisted alternate future they had been sent to, it wasn't exactly realistic. His eye was drawn away from the picture as the date and time flashed in the corner of the screen.

His breath left him all at once, and he staggered backward, knees buckling as the back of his legs his the bed. He had suspected that they were way, way ahead of their time. The changes in her face, in his face, they had told him that more than a few days had passed. But seeing it like that, laid out on the screen, it was staggering. Lydia was by his side in a second, her hand on his back.

"Stiles?" He tried to tell her, but his mouth was dry, unbearably so, and nothing came out. Instead, he shoved the phone at her. He didn't look up, didn't see her reaction as she gazed wistfully down at the picture, but he heard the sharp intake of breath as she saw the date.

"Five years?!" She gaped at the numbers in front of her. "Stiles." Her hands were like claws on his arm, fingers digging painfully into his skin.

"I know." He wheezed. He finally forced himself to look up at her. The date on the screen, December 12th 2019, seemed burned on the back of his eyelids. He felt the fluttering of a panic attack rising in his stomach, and pressed his palm against his chest, trying to slow the frantic beating of his heart.

"Okay." Lydia muttered. "Alright, so it's 2019." Stiles realized she was trying to work through it, to distract him with the puzzle. He appreciated more than he could ever say. "We're… we would be twenty-three. Both of us." Stiles nodded. They both had spring birthdays so that would make sense. It would also explain why they looked like they were so much older. "And we're a couple." Stiles bit the inside of his cheek. It was pretty obvious that was true. This was _their _bedroom. There were photos of them everywhere. The wallpaper on his phone was of the kissing. It was preposterous, but it was true.

"Yeah." He said, the dry tone of his voice not lost on her. She gave him a questioning look but let it slide. "So we're twenty-three, living together, and you have a tattoo." That was all the information they had, really, and laid out like that it didn't seem like much. Lydia stood up and held out her hand. Stiles frowned at it.

"If we want to find out what's going on, we're going to have to go out there." She nodded toward the door. Stiles grudgingly took her hand and they walked to the door together. She gave him one last look, something meant to be reassuring, but he could feel her hand shaking in his and it didn't go far to calming to his own fears. "Ready?" She asked. He didn't answer. Instead, he just reached for the doorknob, gripped it and swung open the door.


End file.
